Freedom of religion
Freedom of religion is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance; the concept is generally recognized also to include the freedom to change religion or not to follow any religion. The freedom to leave or discontinue membership in a religion or religious group —in religious terms called "apostasy" —is also a fundamental part of religious freedom, covered by Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Freedom of religion is considered by many people and nations to be a fundamental human right. In a country with a state religion, freedom of religion is generally considered to mean that the government permits religious practices of other sects besides the state religion, and does not persecute believers in other faiths.
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- The demand for a statement of a candidate’s religious belief can have no meaning except that there may be discrimination for or against him because of that belief. Discrimination against the holder of one faith means retaliatory discrimination against men of other faiths. The inevitable result of entering upon such a practice would be an abandonment of our real freedom of conscience and a reversion to the dreadful conditions of religious dissension which in so many lands have proved fatal to true liberty, to true religion, and to all advance in civilization.
- They [the Pilgrims] believed in freedom of thought for themselves and for all other people who believed exactly as they did.
- Will Cuppy, The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950).
- [T]he effect of the religious freedom Amendment to our Constitution was to take every form of propagation of religion out of the realm of things which could directly or indirectly be made public business, and thereby be supported in whole or in part at taxpayers' expense. That is a difference which the Constitution sets up between religion and almost every other subject matter of legislation, a difference which goes to the very root of religious freedom[...] This freedom was first in the Bill of Rights because it was first in the forefathers' minds; it was set forth in absolute terms, and its strength is its rigidity. It was intended not only to keep the states' hands out of religion, but to keep religion's hands off the state, and, above all, to keep bitter religious controversy out of public life by denying to every denomination any advantage from getting control of public policy or the public purse.
- Robert H. Jackson, Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township, 330 U.S. 1 (1947) (dissenting).
- The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion it will cease to be free for religion - except for the sect that can win political power.
- Robert H. Jackson, Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306, 325 (1952) (dissenting).
- A genuinely democratic society requires a secular ethos: one that does not equate morality with religion, stigmatize atheists, defer to religious interests and aims over others or make religious belief an informal qualification for public office. Of course, secularism in the latter sense is not mandated by the First Amendment. It's a matter of sensibility, not law.
- Ellen Willis, "Freedom from Religion", The Nation (February 19, 2001)
- If believers feel that their faith is trivialized and their true selves compromised by a society that will not give religious imperatives special weight, their problem is not that secularists are antidemocratic but that democracy is antiabsolutist.
- Ellen Willis, "Freedom from Religion," The Nation (February 19, 2001)
- For democrats, it's as crucial to defend secular culture as to preserve secular law. And in fact the two projects are inseparable: When religion defines morality, the wall between church and state comes to be seen as immoral.
- Ellen Willis, "Freedom from Religion," The Nation (February 19, 2001)
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- Intolerance is the natural concomitant of strong faith; tolerance grows only when faith loses certainty... certainty is murderous.
- The tolerance of liberty can be maintained until complete federal and state control by Catholics has been accomplished.
- Michael O'Connor (1810–1872), Bishop of Pittsburgh, PA
- What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.
